Deja Vu

I liked DEJA VU well enough, but I never lost track of time and I never got swept away.

DEJA VU should be the kind of movie that I go for: a thriller with a science fiction twist. It has a clever script, a likeable cast, and a healthy respect for the laws physics (not that it lets those laws get in the way of the story, but it does at least tip its hat to them). It's script is of the type whose scientific genius, when calling for more power for his time-travel gizmo, shouts, "I'm gonna need more cowbell!" It stars the reliable Denzel Washington, who really needs to do a romantic comedy for a change, and noted time travelling veteran Jim Caviezel makes a fine, if rather one-dimensional, foil. Its understanding of the physical universe struck me as plausible, which is rare for a time-travel movie, but there's something about it ...

I never really bought Washington as an ATF agent with an expertise in explosives. I was ready to, but then the film uses him as the audience surrogate for the exposition about time-warping device. By forcing him to ask dumb questions and come off as anti-intellectual, the film makes him dumber than he could be and still do his job. Additionally, I never felt for the distressed damsel, a woman whose sole character trait appears to be that she looks good in underwear. Finally, the movie itself jumped and danced and exploded so much that it kept reminding me that it was a movie and not a portal into its particular sliver of space-time.

My God: what's happening to me? I'm digging movies about the Queen of England's bad week more than movies about stuff blowing up. Before I know it, I'll start listening to soft rock.

The Queen

Hellen Mirren can do no wrong.

Think about it - when have you seen a poor Mirren performance? Whether scheming against Arthur
solving mysteries, selling calendars, or ruling England, she's always absolutely believable and engaging.
Thus, it comes as no surprise that Helen Mirren is brilliant - absolutely brilliant - in THE QUEEN, a
Stephen Frears film that gives us Elizabeth as character study at the height of England's grief for
the just-killed Diana Spencer.

THE QUEEN balances Elizabeth's story with that of Tony Blair, the newly-elected Prime Minister whose view
of his sovereign, and of himself, matures over the course of the film. Blair's 10 Downing Street is shown in
frank contrast to the Queen's Balmoral and Westminster, setting it up as a stand-in for the New England
in its struggle and accomodation with the Old England the Queen represents. It's neat stuff, and it's well
executed, and I stayed thoroughly involved for every minute of it.

But what really makes this production stand out is Mirren's Queen. She's a fully developed character, totally committed
to her sense of herself, her office, her stoicism, and her duty as she sees it. In this role, Mirren's a mistress of the
subtle gesture, the emotion behind the control, and her performance is nothing short of delightful.

I don't particularly care about the Queen of England, to tell you the truth. I'm not English and I never "got" the
royals worship that's so common here in the States. But THE QUEEN made me care about Elizabeth and her world in a personal
way, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

What a winner.

The Constant Gardener

THE CONSTANT GARDENER disappointed me. It had an excellent script and a first-class cast, but it was hobbled by photography and music so distracting that I spent more time thinking about how annoyed I was than I did actually engaging with the film. Bummer. Danny Huston did provide one very bright spot, however. After enjoying his performance in SILVER CITY as a good guy who's trying to be bad, it was fun to watch him flip the characterization on its head for this picture.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

I didn’t expect to like BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGSOF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN. I’m not a fan of the comedy of discomfort, and by the time the film got its release, its titular character had become overexposed. Nevertheless, I had to stay up late to recalibrate my body clock for something I’m working on, and it was either BORAT or HAPPY FEET.

While I didn’t laugh all through BORAT, I laughed through a great deal of it. Cohen has this way of making his character both so charming and so offensive that I couldn’t help myself: “I hope your President Bush drinks the blood of every man, woman, and child in Iraq!” may very well be the funniest line of 2006. Additionally, I loved the way he drew Americans into validating his faux-Kazakhstani stereotypes while validating the stereotypical way in which different regions of the country view one another.

I’m surprised to say it, but BORAT is that rare comedy that gives plenty to laugh about and plenty to chew on. In fact, the more I think about it, the better it gets. It’s easily my biggest surprise of 2006.

Casino Royale

CASINO ROYALE is the first James Bond film I’ve liked since Timothy Dalton left the franchise. But something about it bothered the hell out of me.

Don’t get me wrong: Pierce Brosnan was a fine Bond, keeping the character just this side of self-parody while clearly having fun with the role. Problem is, he was a fine Bond in terrible movies. Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist? Invisible cars? “He’s the best there is”? Give me a break – he’s one of nine. Sure, I saw every one of his movies, but I walked out disappointed every time. It got to the point where, as with Star Wars, I was ready to leave the franchise behind. Daniel Craig, on the other hand, got lucky with his first film in the role. CASINO ROYAL’s stunts looked practical, its villains seemed plausible, and its story seemed reasonable. This gave the film a sense of urgency that the others lacked, and it helped to keep me entertained throughout its running time.

But here’s the thing that bothered me: I finally realized that the Bond franchise is basically wealth porn. It dangles before us, bright and shiny, a world of fabulously wealthy people living fabulous lives in fabulous locations. Even its working stiffs, its spies and accountants, get to live fabulously on their governments’ tabs (he writes, looking around his serviceable but decidedly non-fabulous government-funded hotel room). It equates wealth with conspicuous consumption, two things that have proven, time and again, to be fundamentally incompatible, and it does so while burying us in advertising for watches, cars, beverages, hotels, and nearly every other consumable a profligate spender might reasonably purchase. I have a problem with wealth porn, because it encourages the kind of irresponsible behavior that leads to people purchasing vehicles whose value outweighs that of their retirement plans, all for a taste of what they perceive to be “the good life.” Why did this particular installment trigger that connection? I suspect that it was the sight of James Bond driving to a posh location alone in a Ford, then driving away in a fabulous sports car, beautiful woman at his side, because he had basically won the lottery. My first reaction? “Frack! I need to win the lottery!” (Legal Disclaimer: So I can put the beautiful woman to whom I’m married in a fabulous sports car. Let’s make that perfectly clear.) My second reaction? “What am I thinking? I need to make another contribution to my Roth IRA!”

So while I enjoyed the movie, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was selling me an attractive lie. It’s the blemish on an otherwise entirely enjoyable film. I wouldn’t let a little wealth porn turn you away.

The Incredibles

THE INCREDIBLES is a perfect movie. It has humor, it has pathos, it has action. It has a wonderfully creative design, a fully realized world, and terrific music that builds on a solid script.

You know how some movies are billed as "fun for the whole family"? THE INCREDIBLES really is. The movie offers several characters that provide an "in" to the story, it builds and sustains tension in interesting and creative ways, and it manages the perfect balance between providing enough danger to keep things interesting, while never scaring the kids into believing that the heroes are in really big trouble.

It had been a few years since last I saw this movie, and I wondered if it would hold up. It did. THE INCREDIBLES is a genuine classic.

Godzilla vs. Megalon

MST3K'S take on GODZILLA VS. MEGALON kept me laughing from beginning to end. It's the most fun I've had with a Godzilla movie in quite some time.

I'd never before seen an MST3K version of a film. I prefer to watch good movies, if I can, but this was the last unseen Godzilla picture in the Netflix inventory, and did feature the titular Megalon, as well as Jet Jaguar and Gigan, so I had to give it a shot.

As is the case with most Godzilla movies of its ('70s) era, it's insufferably bad. MST3K's riffs on the material, however, elevated it to near-masterpiece level. It's the funniest thing I've seen so far this month, and I recommend to anyone who's a little burned out on giant Japanese monsters.

Lady Vengeance

I was all set to love Chan Wook Park's LADY VENGEANCE. I thought SYMPATHY FOR MISTER VENGEANCE was excellent, and I think OLDBOY is one of the best films of the decade. When the beautifully stylized opening credits rolled, I sat back and got ready to wrap myself in the world of a master.

But here's the problem: people have been telling Park (Or is it Chan? I wish we could all settle on a Western standard.) that he's a genius, and he's starting to believe them. LADY VENGEANCE spend so much time cycling into and out of normal narrative time, its subnotes are so cute, and its flights of fancy so indistinguishable from mental instability, that LV fairly screams, "Look at me! I'm the work of a genius, dammit! A genius!" I could not immerse myself in its world because it couldn't quite decide in which world it wanted to immerse me. I could not empathize with its protagonist because by the time the film gave me enough material to do so, I had ceased to care. I could not enjoy the film because the film gave me no cause to do so.

LADY VENGEANCE is the kind of film in which the production designer seems to struggle with the lighting guy, who struggles with the cinematographer, who struggles with the director, who struggles with the actors. They're all trying to one-up each other, all trying to showcase their Genius. But they forgot about me, Joe- Guy -on -the -Couch -Whose -Back -Hurts -from -Raking -Leaves. Entertain me, people. Make me think. Hell, dazzle me. But don't distract me with your Genius.

Just tell me a story.

X-Men: The Last Stand

X-MEN: THE LAST STAND makes up for its abundance of fireworks by minimizing its sense of fun.

The first two X-Men movies weren't masterpieces, but they rocked along reasonably well. They had some laughs, they had some fights, they had some things to think about. X3 has no laughs, too many fights, and enough things to think about for at least three breathless college essays.

The whole thing just feels like an exercise in action filmmaking, but a film like THE HIDDEN BLADE so eclipses it even in purely action-related terms that it can't fully succed even in that limited arena.

X3 is a mediocrity. I can't muster up much more to say about it than that.

District B13

If martial arts movies are basically dance movies with fake blood, DISTRICT B13 (the Americanized title of BANLIEU 13, a French martial arts picture) B13 is the kind of dance movie in which the editing gets in the way of the dancing.

The plot - well, nevermind. Who remembers the plot to SWING TIME? The fighting and acrobatics deliver plenty of thrills and not a few "rewind" moments, but the film's frenetic editing so detracts from the beauty and awesomness of the choreography and its execution that, by the climax, I wanted to put a brick through someone's AVID computer.

Nevertheless, B13 delivers on its audience's expectations. It offers enough of people kicking other people in the face, and doing so in new and creative ways, that it's sure to please action and martial arts fans. Just don't expect to know whether you're watching the result of athleticism and precision or clever editing.

The Hidden Blade

Maybe you can’t trust my comments on THE HIDDEN BLADE, Yoji Yamada’s follow-up to THE TWILIGHT SAMURAI. You see, I’m a sucker for samurai movies – I have been since THE SEVEN SAMURAI. Feudal Japan captures my imagination: the code of Bushido, the architecture, the stark aesthetic of Kendo. The last time I was in Japan, I must have logged 500 miles on the local trains in the greater Tokyo-Yokohama megalopolitan area. A guy can burn out on Europe’s gothic cathedrals pretty quickly, but there’s no such thing as one too many Zen shrines.

THE HIDDEN BLADE tells the tale of Katagiri, a samurai living at the end of the Edo period. It’s less than a decade before the fall of the Shogun and Meiji restoration, and Edo’s long traditions of honor and duty have become more a tool for controlling the samurai class than the living code of the Shogunate. Katagiri believes in these traditions to the core of his being: he takes pride in the fact that his father had committed seppuku for an error that was the man’s responsibility, but not his fault. As Katagiri comes to realize that he serves a system that is unworthy of him, his life becomes increasingly complicated. One of his boyhood comrades and fellow samurai has been convicted of treason, casting the shadow of suspicion on all the samurai of his rural village. Additionally, Katagiri find himself at the center of a local scandal involving himself and an angelic servant girl he rescues from an abusive household.

As audience members, we come to care for Katagiri and his circle. These are honorable people in dishonorable times, making the best decisions of which they are able. The film takes the time to fully invest us in its world and its people, and it moves at a deliberate (though not dull) pace that both evokes its era and adds impact to the swift decisions that can mean the difference between life and death. Yamada films THE HIDDEN BLADE in a graceful, formal manner, calling attention to himself only through the deftness of his touch and the grace of his choices.

Sometimes, a movie seeks only to pass the time. Sometimes, a movie seeks only to entertain. Sometimes, a movie aspires to art. THE HIDDEN BLADE is the latter, and it succeeds.

That is, if you can trust me.

Brain Dead

BRAIN DEAD is cheesy fun. It’s the story of a brain surgeon who performs a highly unethical operation on a man the government suspects of having a secret deep inside his cerebellum. When the surgeon goes to work, so does the movie, weaving in and out of reality in layer upon hallucinogenic layer until the viewer shares in the characters’ disorientation.

I saw BRAIN DEAD by accident: I thought I was getting BRAINDEAD, the early Peter Jackson film. B D, was made by Adam Simon and stars Bills Paxton and Pullman, and it’s 90 minutes of over-the-top, vaguely horrific imagery that manages to do what it intends: set a paranoiac gloss over everyday events that’s creepy enough for spookiness, yet not too creepy for fun.

Sahara

I don’t have much to say about SAHARA. It’s a bit of mindless fluff, a by-the-numbers action adventure that puts hero, sidekick, and love interest through various trials on their way to saving the world. If SAHARA has one thing to recommend it, it’s seeing William H. Macy in his role as a retired admiral and all-purpose ass-kicker who backs the hero at just the right time.

SAHARA’s loud, predictable, and utterly devoid of any originality whatsoever. That said, it’s the perfect companion for an afternoon of paying bills and folding laundry. You can leave the room for a few minutes and, when you return, instantly intuit everything you’ve missed. It does what it does, and that’s about that.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

STAR TREK IV is everything I love about Star Trek packed into 109 minutes of pure fun.

ST4 begins with a mysterious probe heading toward Earth and rendering powerless everything in its path. Coincidentally, the Enterprise crew is about to embark for Earth, where they will face court martial for a host of crimes, not the least of which is forcing audiences to sit through the tedious STAR TREK III. Naturally, the crew will save the day and save themselves, so they can inflict upon us the truly horrific STAR TREK V, but that's just the plot. That's not what makes ST4 a winner.

ST4 (the most successful film of the series, as I recall) focuses on the thing that made Star Trek unique: the apparant camaraderie among its crew members. The Enterprise crew, far from having become a bunch of hoary old retreads, is a well-oiled machine, so comfortable working together that they can take the time to enjoy the ride. The film maintains a perfect tone of light entertainment, all while calling attention to an issue that, while perhaps more glamorous in its day, remains no less relevant in our own. The science is vaguely implausible, yet waived aside so blithely that we don't ask too many questions: it does what it's supposed to do: impart a sense of wonder without overwhelming us with jargon.

STAR TREK IV touches on important themes, such as the value of friendship and the importance of conservation. But the thing I always loved about STAR TREK, the thing that brought me back after more than twenty years, is its sense of fun and delight. STAR TREK IV has it in spades, and I enjoyed the heck out of seeing it again.

Eight Below

I went into EIGHT BELOW with low expectations. It was a Heroic Dog movie, after all, and those generally run from kitschy to depressing. Additionally, I thought that Bruce Greenwood played a villain. I like Bruce Greenwood; I didn’t want to see him play a villain.

What a pleasant surprise. While EIGHT BELOW begins slowly, it quickly picks up steam and keeps us involved in the adventure right through to the end. Here’s the short version: scientists must leave a team of sled dogs behind when they evacuate their Antarctic research station in the face of a coming storm. The movie, which is loosely based on a true story, chronicles the team’s struggle to survive and their human master’s struggle to mount an expedition to save them.

Paul Walker plays the master, and he builds on his fine work in RUNNING SCARED to deliver a character whom we accept as an Antarctic dogsledder and audience surrogate in our concern for the dogs. The dogs are heroic, of course, and though they do engage in behavior that runs counter to my understanding of sled-dog dynamics (As a former malamute owner, I have a passing interest in the subject.), they manage to hold our sympathy and win our respect.

Frank Marshall made EIGHT BELOW in Canada, but the film looks like he shot it in Antarctica. It’s stark, forbidding, and beautiful, and I can’t wait to see this thing in high definition.

Ultimately, I liked everything about EIGHT BELOW. And Bruce Greenwood doesn’t play a villain, after all.

Godzilla's Revenge

GODZILLA’S REVENGE (1969) is the worst kind of cynical filmmaking. Toho Studios made this movie for about $3.95 by blending archival footage from GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER with a quick and simple story of a little boy whom Godzilla inspires to stand up to bullies. The non-archival footage looks and feels cheap, right down to the holes in the Minilla costume used when the boy imagines he’s on Monster Island.

Sure, the movie turned a profit – how could it not, given the cheapness of the production? But the whole things smells of killing the goose that laid the golden egg. It’s a testament to the durability of the character that the series managed to limp along for another six years before it went dormant for the next 9.

What a waste.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

I think I was supposed to watch FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! through a prism of ironic detachment, but I don’t care for movies that require me to be in on the joke to enjoy them. FPKK is a ridiculous story about ridiculous people behaving in ridiculous ways, and it’s played so far over the top that it makes suspension of disbelief impossible.

You know that actor’s rule about going to anger? About how it’s the easiest emotion to portray, but it’s also a dead end because once you start yelling, there’s no where else to go? No one told that to FPKK’s lead character and villain, a vaguely Elvira-esque go-go dancer who spends so much of the film spitting mad that she becomes uninteresting. It’s too bad, really. The script gives her some great one-liners, but she can’t even make these gems go. As for the rest of the cast, I’ve seen community theater amateurs essay more nuanced performances.

FPKK has nothing going for it – absolutely nothing at all. Here in the internet age, it can’t even work up much in the way of prurient interest. I hated it.

Ararat

With ARARAT, Atom Egoyan applies his considerable skills to the Armenian Genocide, an issue that's clearly of profound importance to him. He weaves together multiple storylines and timelines (a technique that seemed revolutionary with his first film and now feels pedestrian) to generate dramatic tension while he builds a two-hour long testament to a war crime committed long ago and far away.

It's an artfully made film, and I cared for its characters, many of whom are longstanding members of Agoyan's repertory company. But here's the problem, articulated by Elias Koteas (he plays an actor who lands the role of Jevdet Bey, a major player in the genocide) in conversation with a young man of Armenian descent:

Koteas: Look, I was born here. So were you, right?
Young man: Yeah.
Koteas: This is a new country. So let's just drop the f^cking history
and get on with it.

The young man feels the pain of the genocide like it happened yesterday. He carries that pain like Serbs carry the pain of their defeat at the Field of Blackbirds in 1389, transmuting into a kind of impotent rage. In fact, most of the ethnically Armenian characters in the film carry that rage, and I can't help but think that that rage is precisely the kind of thing that keeps cultures locked in cycles of retribution.

How much better a place might the world be if we could just drop the f^cking history and get on with it?

Memories of Murder

MEMORIES OF MURDER, set in the mid-eighties, follows a pair of detectives as they try to figure out who is behind a series of grisly killings.

It's a police procedural, pure and simple, though it comes with a twist unlike any I've seen before. It's a solid picture, but it didn't blow me away.

Just a datapoint for your decisionmaking.

Crash

I finally saw CRASH last night, and I'll add my voice to the general chorus of disdain.

I don't require that the films I see have people like those I know in real life. I don't require that they have characters who speak like those I know in real life. I do, however, require that, unless the movies feature balrogs or wookies or toupeed actors screaming "Khaaaaaann!", they have people that could, conceivably, walk the earth.

I'm sure Paul Haggis is a nice man, but his film feels like something written by a guy who never leaves his gated community. People just don't talk about race the way these people talk about race. White politicos don't complain about "these friggin' black people;" they simply forget to plan for their evacuation. Coincidence does not, in fact, pile on coincidence like a poorly constructed Jenga stack. CRASH does not take place in a world I recognize.